The Tendulkar saga is about genius, dedication and an unquenchable love of the game

Ayaz Memon

When Miranda sees Fernando for the first time in Shakespeare’s Tempest, she is drawn to say: “I might call him a thing divine; for nothing natural i ever saw so noble”. At a fanciful stretch, the cricket lover might say that about Sachin Tendulkar. The milestone of 100 international centuries does not add substantially to the game or indeed Tendulkar’s greatness as a batsman. But it does reiterate the talent, longevity and appeal of a player who has transcended nationality and his sport in terms of reach and adulation. It is almost impossible to explain the lure of cricket to the non-believer; so it is with the hold which Tendulkar has had on cricket fans since he burst onto our consciousness. There have been great cricketers before him and undoubtedly more will follow, but Tendulkar stands alone as both driving force and glue in the contemporary game, especially in India. A country that can divide itself all too easily on issues of language, religion, caste and class has been held together, so to speak, by his charisma and his exploits for over two decades. His appeal has cut across age and gender groups. People have bunked work to see him bat or suspended their household chores. Sometimes, the entire nation has come to a standstill. Cricket is a potent idiom of Indian life and cricketers have traditionally been heroes. But nobody has inspired so much sentiment. Tendulkar has been gladiator, saviour and loveable boy next door making him a mythical character, which is obviously flawed. As his travails of the past year have shown, he is all too human in his desires, self-doubts and in coping with an ageing body. In his anthology, It Takes All Sorts, Peter Roebuck the late cricketer and writer, captures the Tendulkar mania with the sharp objectivity of an outsider: ``For 15 of his 30 years (he wrote this a few years earlier) Tendulkar has lived with the worship of a cricket-mad public that wants him to be infallible, ruthless and destructive, supporters inclined to forget that he emerged from a womb and not from the pages of a comic book.’’ This obsession with a smallmade man with a prosaic middleclass upbringing and a very modest education is largely inexplicable. An exploding, hyperventilating media has clearly played a huge role. Yet, social scientists might see a nexus – however tenuous – between Tendulkar’s career and Old India’s leap into New India; from a mixed economy to a liberalised one, from a mai-baap ethos into meritocracy. He arrived in 1989 when the country was reeling under the Mandal agitation; a 16-year-old seeking no reservation, only acknowledgement of his skills. Over the next few years, as the country was fractured by mandirmasjid politics, Tendulkar’s batting was like balm to the wounds. He became the metaphorical repository of unity, trust, ability and self-belief that a nervous nation was seeking. By the mid-1990s India had moved on substantially from divisive politics into robust economic growth, and Tendulkar matched it with rapid strides too. He passed stiff scrutiny about his ability all over the cricket world. The final seal of approval came in 1998 when Don Bradman, the Bhishma Pitamah of batsmanship, said that he saw himself reflected in Tendulkar’s batting. Since then, he has been the game’s biggest drawcard. In the Tendulkar era, Indian cricket has scaled new heights and the sport has become a multibillion-dollar industry. His contribution in both has been significant as colleagues, rivals and those who negotiate television rights, advertising campaigns et al will testify. This has meant rich rewards for Tendulkar too. In 1995, he was signed up by WorldTel for a fiveyear deal worth Rs 18 crore. When the contract was renewed it was worth almost Rs 100 crore which is about what he reportedly earns annually nowadays; the equation between talent and compensation in India conclusively redefined by free-market economics. At its core, though, the Tendulkar saga is about a young sportsperson actualising his genius through dedication, desire and an unquenchable love of the game. There are several examples of prodigies who burnt out prematurely, only a few who succeeded. Tendulkar’s must rate as among the more riveting stories. Where Tendulkar ranks among great batsmen is the subject of unending debate. Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond, George Headley, Garry Sobers, Sunil Gavaskar, Viv Richards, Greg Chappell, Javed Miandad – to name some from the past – are not statistically inferior. Of his contemporaries, he has off and on been overshadowed by Brian Lara’s effervescence, Ricky Ponting’s pugnacity, Rahul Dravid’s resilience, Matthew Hayden’s power, Jacques Kallis’s solidity, Kumar Sangakara’s panache and Virender Sehwag’s diabolical derring-do. But on an extended timeline, Tendulkar perhaps nudges ahead of most as a nuanced, versatile and complete batsman. This brings us to Bradman, a comparison that is both odious and relevant. Where batting exploits are concerned, the Don remains unapproachable. But Bradman and Tendulkar are joined at the hip where carrying the enormous burden of expectation of their respective countries over a prolonged period is concerned. And now of course records that are unlikely to be ever breached. From a purist’s point of view, Tendulkar’s 100 centuries is not as intrinsic to cricket as Bradman’s career average of 99.94: in fact, it’s a tad contrived, a mix of apples and oranges, as it were. But it benchmarks a stupendous body of work in a fascinating 23-year-old career nonetheless. The writer is a sports columnist and commentator . As much a symbol of all that is good about India as a man